Volume 130, Number 5 tech.mit.edu Tuesday, February 16, 2010

MIT’sOldest and Largest

Newspaper

Weather, p. 2tues: 36°f | 28°f

Rain and snow

Wed: 39°f | 28°f

Cloudy, drizzling

thurs: 42°f | 29°f

Mostly cloudy

Lessons from the rinG LeakRingComm should make sure the ring design is good before worrying about flashy distractions during premiere. OPN, p. 4

seCtionsWorld & Nation . . .2Opinion . . . . . . . . .4Campus Life . . . . .6Fun Page . . . . . . . .7Sports . . . . . . . . . 12

obama is not the GovernmentDon’t blame him for all its failures, or give him too much credit. OPN, p. 5

mit: pay your Workers fairLyFreezing wages is essentially forcing pay cuts on hard-working staff. OPN, p. 5

various states of undressIt’s an acquired taste, to be sure, but... CL, p. 6

iCe theatre team pLaCes seCondOn Saturday, MIT skaters won second place at the Skating Club of New York Showcase. SPO, p. 12

in shortMIT Police will holding lap-top tagging events this week from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Stata on Wednesday and in Lobby 10 on Thursday. The fee is $10 to help protect your computer.

The waiver and enrollment deadline for the MIT Student Extended Insurance Plan is this Sunday, February 28. Wavers and registration can be completed online at http://medweb.mit.edu/waive.

The men’s volleyball team is on a four-game winning streak after beating Lesley University 3–0 on Monday.

Campus Preview Weekend is approaching! Go to http://w eb.mit .edu/a dmiss ions/mitcpw to host a prefrosh, publish an event, or reserve a festival booth.

Like arts? Follow the new arts section blog at http://rtz.tumblr.com. Be warned: These are the unfiltered, disgustingly trendy thoughts of our arts writers.

Send news information and tips to news@tech.mit.edu.

intervieW

St. Kitts PM Douglas talks with The Tech

Pike fraternity hopes to restart MIT chapter

Feng Wu—The Tech

Astronaut Timothy J. Creamer MS ’92 tells the audience at Ring Premiere that the Class of 2012 Brass Rat has traveled to the International Space Station. The Brass Rat was launched into space on Feb. 8, aboard Space Shuttle Endeavor.

LaWrence Jackson—The WhiTe house

Dr. Denzil L. Douglas, Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, gave the keynote address at the second annual Caribbean Students’ Conference on Saturday. He is pictured with the Obamas at a reception in New York dur-ing his 2009 visit to the U.S.

Space is Rat’s next frontierRingComm sends ring to International Space Station

By Natasha PlotkinexecuTive ediTor

In Washington, D.C., “Bill knows everyone, and everyone knows Bill,” said Albert J. Swiston G, presi-dent of the MIT Science Policy Initiative student group.

As well, perhaps, Bill should. As the director of the MIT Washington Office, it’s William B. Bonvillian’s job to make sure MIT’s voice is heard by the nation’s policy makers. And, though the two institutions can differ in culture and opinion, the staff at the Washing-ton Office has found that in plenty of situations their goals are in sync.

The staff tries to make the most of these situations. They set up meetings where MIT professors brief congressional staffers on their research, keep MIT labs informed about federal legislation that impacts their missions, and holds seminars to teach legisla-tors about science and scientists about policy, among other activities.

The office’s three main employees, Bonvillian, As-sistant Director Alison Fox, and Senior Legislative As-sistant Abby Benson, are all registered lobbyists, but they don’t pursue earmarks. “We are not advocates to get the federal government to give particular grants,” said Bonvillian. “What we do is support what’s healthy for science and technology.”

“We look to represent MIT in moving the national agenda forward,” said Fox.

The office likes to connect MIT affiliates who have deep backgrounds in policy-relevant research topics with Washington officials who might benefit

Scientists in WashingtonBonvillian connects MIT to policy makers

Washington, Page 11

By Natasha PlotkinexecuTive ediTor

Prime Minister of the Fed-eration of saint kitts and nevis denzil L. douglas visited MiT to speak about caribbean coun-tries’ efforts to invigorate their region’s science and technology agenda at the MiT caribbean students’ conference on satur-day. after the interview, he sat down with The Tech to speak about his background in politics and medicine and his economic development achievements in his country.

The Tech: You’ve lived and studied in the Caribbean your whole life. Did you ever think about going elsewhere, or did you always feel the Caribbean was your home?

Prime Minister denzil L. douglas: I think opportunities presented themselves in the Caribbean...At one time I did think of going off to London to do some postgrad work. I was interested in dermatology, and there’s a school in London where I had acceptance to do postgraduate work but I didn’t pursue it because that path of

my career was interrupted by politics.

TT: How did you decide to start out in medicine and be-come a doctor?

There are two things really here. I think I always wanted to do medicine...[Before] I went off to university...I had both a sci-ence and an arts background, but I wanted to do science if I could not do law. I thought about law at that stage but the opportunities but the oppor-tunity didn’t present itself. But

By Maggie LloydassociaTe neWs ediTor

Yet another fraternity may be returning to MIT. Representatives of the Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike) frater-nity, which has not had a chapter at MIT since 1980, are on campus this week to talk to unaffiliated men in the MIT community as the frater-nity attempts to reestablish an MIT chapter.

Expansion consultants Patrick J. Coleman and Joseph C. Warstler said they have already met with coaches, administrators, DormCon, and other student organizations. They are looking to find ways to differentiate Pike from other MIT fraternities.

They said they are looking for male students who will represent the MIT and Greek community as “SLAG” — students, leaders, ath-

letes and gentlemen. These are students who “value academics” and will “develop as leaders” while treating people “with respect and dignity,” they said. They believe that varsity, club, and IM athletes will be able to contribute to Pike’s “competitive drive.”

Interfraternity Council presi-dent T. Ryan Schoen ’11 said that Pike representatives talked to the IFC at the end of last semester.

“We welcome anyone interested in colonizing here,” Schoen said. Pike will be the second fraternity in re-cent years to return to MIT, joining Sigma Alpha Epsilon, which started rushing men in this fall. SAE last had a chapter on campus in 2005.

It does not seem that Pike will immediately have a house. Pike will “allow students to stay in their dorm

By Jiyeon Baek

In honor of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, the Brass Rat has gone to space. Last Friday’s space-themed Ring Premiere featured a special message from astronaut Timothy J. Creamer MS ’92, who brought the 2012 class ring up with him to the In-ternational Space Station. Despite con-cerns that the leak of the Brass Rat designs on Sunday would dampen excitement over Ring Premiere, over 800 sophomores attended the event in Kresge Auditorium.

The 2012 ring features the Apollo Lu-

nar Lander hack on top of the dome on the bezel, and the goddess Athena surround-ed by Olympic torches on the class shank. On the seal shank, the owl resembles ea-gle from the Apollo 11 mission badge. As usual, there are numerous references to the class year, including the sailboats on the Cambridge skyline design which are shaped like a “1” and “2.”

The unveiled designs are identical to pictures sent to three dormitory mailing lists on Sunday, Feb. 7. After Premiere, the 2012 Ring Committee said that the de-signs had been stolen from a committee

member’s computer. “It’s a very regret-table thing that someone would steal the design from a RingComm member’s com-puter,” said RingComm Chair Graham V. Schaik ’12. Last Tuesday, The Tech specu-lated incorrectly that those pictures might be drafts of the final design.

The ring was flown to space as part of the payload of the space shuttle En-deavor on STS-130. According to Schaik, the ring is currently on the International Space Station. The committee’s plan is to

Ring Premiere, Page 8

Douglas, Page 9

Pike, Page 8

2 The Tech Tuesday, February 16, 2010

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By adam nagourneyThe New York Times

WASHINGTON — Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana announced on Monday that he would not seek re-election, sending a wave of distress over his fellow Democrats and fo-cusing new attention on the view that unyielding partisanship had left Congress all but paralyzed.

Bayh, a centrist and the son of a former senator, used the announce-ment that he would not seek a third term to lambaste a Senate that he described as frozen by partisan pol-itics and incapable of passing even basic legislation.

“For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should,” Bayh said. “There is too much partisanship and not enough progress — too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peo-

ple’s business is not being done.”Bayh’s decision staggered Dem-

ocrats: it was the latest in a series of setbacks.

Bayh was among the most prom-inent of moderate Democrats in Congress, but has been increasingly isolated over the past year as he has warned Democratic congressional leaders that the push for big-ticket and expensive legislation was scar-ing off independent voters.

Although Indiana is considered a Republican-leaning state, Obama won it in 2008, and Bayh, 54, who served two terms as governor and won election to the Senate with more than 60 percent of the vote in each of his races, appeared to be in a good position to win a third term.

What was most striking about Bayh’s announcement was the deep disillusionment he expressed with his place of employment, a feeling reflected in recent polls. In a New York Times/CBS News poll last week,

75 percent of respondents said they disapproved of the job Congress was doing; just 8 percent said members of Congress deserved re-election.

In an interview, Bayh said he was startled at how much the Sen-ate had changed since he arrived in 1998, and even more since his fa-ther, Birch Bayh, served in the Sen-ate, from 1963 to 1981.

“This is colored by having ob-served the Senate in my father’s day,” Bayh said. “It wasn’t perfect, they had politics back then too. But there was much more friendship across the aisles, and there was a greater willingness to put politics aside for the welfare of the country. I just don’t see that now.”

“In my father’s day, you legislated for four years and campaigned for two; now it’s full time. The politics never stops,” he said. “My bottom line is that there are a lot of really good people trapped in a dysfunctional sys-tem desperately in need of reform.”

By C.J. ChiversThe New York Times

MARJAH, AFGHANISTAN — Ten minutes after walking out of the small outpost on Monday morning, the Marines of K Company were ambushed again.

Taliban fighters waited until the patrol of perhaps 25 Marines had entirely entered the barren and flat open ground between two mud-walled compounds. Then they opened fire. Bullets twanged past in the air and thumped among the Marines in the dirt.

There was no cover. The Marines dropped, fired, then bounded to their feet, running through muddy gunk.

“Break to your left!” one of them shouted. “Go!”

So began the third day for a rifle company alone in northern Marjah, where four platoons have been in near constant skirmishing with the Taliban since Saturday. They have faced a mix of ambushes and sus-tained engagements along with in-termittent sniper fire. Two Marines were shot and wounded Saturday.

Two Afghan soldiers who patrol with them were gravely wounded Monday, one shot in the face, the other through the neck.

The Afghan government on Monday tried to portray the battle for the Taliban stronghold as all but over, with the resistance light and the Taliban fleeing, a characteriza-tion that bore little resemblance to the facts on the ground here in northern Marjah. The U.S. military offered a more nuanced view of the fighting, but one that still focused on the gains.

The roads into Marjah have been only partially cleared, and this company, Company K, 3rd Bat-talion, 6th Marines, is isolated and surrounded by Taliban.

After two days of fighting, the company was running out of am-munition; the first patrol that was ambushed on Monday was moving to meet another platoon that was carrying fresh ammunition and wa-ter from a 5 a.m. helicopter drop.

The patrol members dashed out of the ambush and reloaded — stripping cartridges from their packaging and pushing them in the

magazines one by one — then set off again. Within minutes they were under fire again, and fighting anew.

The day proved to be a long one for a company that had barely slept in 72 hours and started the morning parched for water.

Company K had been ordered to seize a bridge and a bazaar a little over a mile to the northeast of the landing zone where helicopters had inserted the Marines shortly after midnight Saturday morning. The original plan had been to take the bridge by Saturday evening.

But the fighting had been so in-tense by Saturday afternoon that the company consolidated on the ground that it held. On Sunday it developed into a long-running bat-tle, with several episodes of intense exchanges of fire and aircraft and rockets firing to keep the Taliban back. The company again stopped short of the bridge, and called for resupply of water, food and ammu-nition.

On Monday, it fought through the first ambushes and spent the day clearing buildings on the way to the bridge.

Colleges Lagging On Faculty Diversity

The lack of black and Hispanic professors, highlighted in

two recent reports critical of the faculty makeup at MIT and Emerson College, is a problem shared by the most prominent universities in the Boston area, a Globe survey reveals.

Among those struggling the most is the city’s largest school, Boston University, where blacks and Hispanics make up 3.4 percent of tenured and tenure-track faculty, a figure that has barely budged over the past decade. At BU, like the other schools, the percentage of minority faculty lags far behind the demographics of its student body.

Other local institutions don’t fare much better. At Brandeis University, 3 percent of so-called tenure-line professors are black or Hispanic, and at Harvard, they make up 5.8 percent.

Colleges across the country are struggling to bolster the faculty ranks of these underrepresented minority groups as student populations grow more diverse. Nationally, blacks and Hispanics comprise 8.8 percent of tenure-line faculty, accord-ing to the American Council on Education.

A diverse faculty helps universities recruit top minority stu-dents and provides them with mentors and role models, say students and university officials. The different perspectives and experiences that minority faculty bring can also make colleges more competitive academically and further intellectual debate.

—Tracy Jan, The Boston Globe

On Crete, new evidence of very ancient mariners

Early humans, possibly even prehuman ancestors, appear to have been going to sea much longer than anyone had ever suspected.

That is the startling implication of discoveries made the last two summers on the Greek island of Crete. Stone tools found there, archaeologists say, are at least 130,000 years old, which is considered strong evidence for the earliest known seafaring in the Mediterranean and cause for rethinking the maritime ca-pabilities of prehuman cultures.

Crete has been an island for more than 5 million years, mean-ing that the toolmakers must have arrived by boat. So this seems to push the history of Mediterranean voyaging back more than 100,000 years, specialists in Stone Age archaeology say.

—John Noble Wilford, The New York Times

Will steady resolve be enough to land Evan Lysacek the gold?

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLOMBIA —When the figure skating coach Frank Carroll first saw Evan Lysacek perform, he marveled at him.

Lysacek was training at a rink in Colorado with the athlete who would later become his main rival, Johnny Weir. A tall, gangly 14-year-old, Lysacek looked more suited to basketball than to skating.

Carroll immediately surmised that both teenagers would make it big as skaters.

“I looked at Johnny and said, ‘My God, this is the most talented man I’ve ever seen,”’ said Carroll, 71, who coaches Lysacek. “Then I looked at Evan and said, ‘My God, this is the most determined man I’ve ever seen.”’

Weir may have had grace and fluidity, as well as the shorter, lighter body type favored by the skating aesthetic, but Lysacek was plucky. He was the first at the rink and the last to leave, practicing jumps over and over until he got them right.

“I looked at the two of them and thought, who will be the best?” Carroll said. “Will the one with the natural ease and talent win? Will it beat the one with determination, intensity and work ethic?”

—Juliet Macur, The New York Times

By roman KowchsTAFF meTeorologisT

Boston will experience win-try precipitation today as a storm continues to track northeast-ward near the East Coast. The associated low pressure center will move towards Boston by this evening and continue toward Nova Scotia thereafter. Although this storm is not expected to be a classic nor’easter, Boston will still experience some gusty winds and mixed precipitation through the day. The metro area should expect anywhere from 2–5 inches of snow by to-night, with higher amounts as

you move inland towards New Hampshire and the Worcester area. An easterly wind today will bring warmer air off the ocean, and thus Boston could see light rain mixed with the snow from late morning to mid-afternoon. By evening, snow accumula-tions should become apparent as ground surfaces cool below freezing.

As the storm exits, cloudy skies and some residual precipi-tation should linger for tomor-row. Gusty west winds will also be prominent in the wake of the low pressure system. Glimpses of sunshine should greet us by Thursday and Friday.

Weather

Another Storm Arriving

Democrats reel as a senator steps aside

Militants defy allies on third day of fierce combat

40°N

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Situation for noon Eastern Standard time, tuesday, February 16, 2010extended Forecasttoday: Rain and snow. High 36°F (2°C). East wind 10-15 mph.tonight: Snow, 2-5 in. accumulation possible. Low 28°F (-2°C). West

wind 10-15 mph, gusts near 20 mph.tomorrow: Mostly cloudy. High 39°F (4°C). West wind 10-15 mph.thursday: Mostly cloudy then clearing. Highs around 42°F (6°C). Lows

around 29°F (-2°C).Friday: Partly sunny. Highs around 41°F (5°C). Lows around 29°F (-2°C).

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 The Tech 3WO

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By Vikas BajajThe New York Times

HAMBANTOTA, SRI LANKA — For years, foreign ships laden with oil, machinery, clothes and other cargo sped past this small town near India as part of the world’s brisk trade with China.

Now, China is investing millions to turn this fishing hamlet into a booming new port, furthering an ambitious trading strategy in South Asia that is reshaping the region and forcing India to rethink rela-tions with its neighbors.

As trade in the region grows more lucrative, China has been de-veloping port facilities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and it is planning to build railroad lines in Nepal. These projects, analysts say, are part of a concerted effort by Chinese leaders and companies to open and expand markets for their goods and services in a part of Asia that has lagged behind the rest of

the continent in trade and econom-ic development.

But these initiatives are irking India, whose government worries that China is expanding its sphere of regional influence by surround-ing India with a “string of pearls” that could eventually undermine India’s pre-eminence and poten-tially rise to an economic and secu-rity threat.

As recently as the 1990s, China’s and India’s trade with four South Asian nations — Sri Lanka, Ban-gladesh, Nepal and Pakistan — was roughly equal. But over the last de-cade, China has outpaced India in deepening ties.

For China, these countries pro-vide both new markets and alter-native routes to the Indian Ocean, which its ships now reach through a narrow channel between Indonesia and Malaysia known as the Strait of Malacca. India, for its part, needs to improve economic ties with its neighbors to broaden its growth and

to help foster peace in the region. Some of the shift in trade toward China comes from heightened ten-sions between India and Pakistan, which has hampered trade between the two countries. But China has also made inroads in nations that have been more friendly with India, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Moreover, protectionist senti-ments have marred India’s relation-ships with its neighbors.

India has had some success in establishing closer ties with Sri Lanka, with which it has a strong bi-lateral trade agreement. But China has become a partner of choice for big projects here like the Hamban-tota port.

India is starting to respond to China’s growing influence by be-coming more aggressive in court-ing trade partners. India recently signed a free-trade deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Na-tions and South Korea.

By Kevin SackThe New York Times

LOS ANGELES — When Bern-hard Punzet opened the dreaded envelope from Anthem Blue Cross one recent Saturday, it ruined his weekend.

Although he had no known medical problems, the company was raising the premium on his in-dividual health insurance policy by 34 percent, to $254 a month. The policy for his partner, who is 12 years older, would rise 36 percent, to $369.

“Ten percent I could have ratio-nalized,” said Punzet, 34, a financial controller for a Los Angeles recruit-ing firm. “But a 34 percent increase? I don’t even have any data points for that, nothing to compare it to. I’ve never seen anything go up 34 percent.”

With health care negotiations stalled in Washington, the Obama administration is seizing on the seething fury felt by Punzet and nearly 700,000 other Anthem cus-tomers in California who have re-ceived notices of increases that av-

erage 25 percent. About a quarter of them are seeing leaps of 35 percent to 39 percent, the company said, at least four times the rate of medical inflation.

At a moment when the health care debate seemed drained of ur-gency, the rate increases have per-mitted President Barack Obama to remind Americans of what is at stake, not just for the uninsured but for those whose coverage is threat-ened by unregulated hyperinflation.

The spike in Anthem’s premi-ums, Obama warned last week, were “just a preview of coming at-tractions” if the country failed to overhaul its health insurance sys-tem.

But if Anthem was the whipping boy the White House needed, the confrontation has also reinforced an emerging shift of focus in Wash-ington from the need for universal coverage to the need for serious cost control. And it brought into clear relief the deep rift between the administration and the insur-ance industry concerning a central question: whether such unsustain-able pricing is driven by the blood-

less economics of risk or corporate greed.

Recognizing a no-lose proposi-tion when they see one, politicians in Sacramento and Washington chastised Anthem relentlessly last week, and hearings are scheduled in both capitals. On Saturday, An-them’s parent company, WellPoint Inc. of Indianapolis, agreed to a request from California’s insur-ance commissioner to delay the in-creases by two months, to May 1, so he could determine whether they comply with loss-ratio regulations.

Most of WellPoint’s fourth-quar-ter surge came from the one-time sale of a business unit or that An-them lost money on the individual market in California last year, as company officials assert. Califor-nia’s insurance commissioner, Steve Poizner, said Saturday that he had a “healthy skepticism” about the claim.

Although Anthem, the state’s largest for-profit insurer, has seemed outmaneuvered by the White House so far, it has tried to transform its defensive position into a teachable moment.

As China develops ports in south Asia, India frets

Greek bailout increasingly unpopular in Germany

In California, Exhibit A in health insurance debate

By Nicholas KulishiThe New York Times

BERLIN — As European finance ministers refused Monday to name specific measures to rescue Greece and the Continent’s common cur-rency, opposition grew among Germans to bailing out what they call spendthrifts to the south after years of belt-tightening by workers at home.

The fiscal crisis, shaking the Greek government while driving down the value of the euro, is forc-ing taxpayers and voters across Eu-rope to confront the fact that their fortunes are tied together more closely than their politicians con-fessed in the late 1990s, in the rush to create the common currency over public objections.

In the process it has revealed how deeply national identity, rather than a common European identity, remains the reality on the Continent. Solidarity, at least in the eyes of most voters, still stops at the border.

Despite popular opposition to helping Greece, analysts expect big countries like France and Germany to reach some kind of deal, since the prospect of economic chaos with-out an agreement is more frighten-ing than even the wrath of voters.

“Just like Obama is not going to let a systemic bank fail, Europe is not going to kick the wayward out of the system,” said Josef Joffe, the publish-er of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit. But he added that the reason for that cannot be kept from the voters.

“Europe has become a huge wel-fare state for everybody, for states as well as individuals,” he said.

Greece’s finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, told his counter-parts on Monday that a firmer com-mitment to helping his country was needed to fend off speculators. Other ministers in the euro zone lectured Greece about using complex financial instruments prepared by Wall Street to hide debt and called for a tighter clampdown on spending, rather than outlining the specifics of an aid pack-

age that would calm markets.European leaders want to ex-

tract guarantees from the Greeks to put their finances in order be-fore offering any kind of rescue, but their reticence also stems from the fact that any price tag will have to be defended at home.

Here in Germany, opinion sur-veys show that two-thirds of the people oppose financial assistance for Greece. More ominously, a sur-vey released Sunday by the news-paper Bild showed that a slight ma-jority of Germans, 53 percent, said they favored expelling Greece from the euro group entirely if its moun-tain of debt threatened the stability of the currency union.

“Every country has its own debts,” said Kristin Lautenschlae-ger, 70, a retiree in Berlin who said she opposed spending German money to save Greece. “Germany is no longer such a rich country any-more, and has its own problems to deal with before it can take care of Greece’s.”

Joint raid captures Taliban’s top commander

WASHINGTON —The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint op-eration by Pakistani and U.S. intelligence forces, according to U.S. government officials.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan de-scribed by U.S. officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials interrogating him, according to officials.

It was unclear whether he was talking, but the officials said his capture could lead to other senior officials. Most immediately, they hope he will provide the whereabouts of Omar, the one-eyed cleric who is the group’s spiritual leader.

Disclosure of Baradar’s capture came while U.S. and Afghan forc-es were in the midst of a major offensive in southern Afghanistan.

His capture could cripple the Taliban’s military operations, at least in the short term, said Bruce O. Riedel, a CIA veteran who last spring led the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan policy review.

—Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins, The New York Times

Drug firms apply brand to generics

Some prestigious brand-name pharmaceutical companies that

once looked askance at the high-volume, low-cost business of gener-ic drugs are now becoming major purveyors of generic medicines.

Just don’t call them no-name drugs.Giants like Sanofi-Aventis and GlaxoSmithKline are not look-

ing to enter the commodity generics market in the United States, where chain pharmacies often determine which generics they offer based on the lowest available price — and where consumers often view generic makers as interchangeable.

Instead, the big drugmakers are pursuing a growing consum-er base in emerging markets like Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America where many people pay out of pocket for their medicines but often cannot afford expensive brand-name drugs.

And, in some emerging markets, where the fear of counterfeit drugs or low-quality medicines runs high, consumers who can af-ford it are willing to pay a premium for generics from well-known makers, industry analysts said. These products are known as com-pany-branded generics, or branded generics. They carry the name of a trusted local or foreign drugmaker stamped on the package, seen as a sign of authenticity and quality control.

—Natasha Singe, The New York Times

Excise tax loses support amid White House push

WASHINGTON —An agreement to tax high-cost, employer-

sponsored health insurance plans, announced with fanfare by the White House and labor unions last month, is losing support from labor leaders, who say the proposal is too high a price to pay for the limited health care package they expect to emerge from Congress.

But the White House is still urging Congress to adopt the excise tax as a way to help pay for President Barack Obama’s ambitious health care proposals.

With support for the tax eroding, congressional leaders are searching for alternative sources of revenue.

The search has some urgency because Obama has said he hopes House and Senate Democrats can resolve their differences and come up with a final version of the legislation before he con-venes a bipartisan meeting on the issue on Feb. 25.

—Robert Pear, The New York Times

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4 The Tech Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Chairman Steve Howland ’11

Editor in Chief Jeff Guo ’11

Business Manager Greg Steinbrecher ’12

Managing Editor David M. Templeton ’08

Executive Editor Natasha Plotkin ’11

News staff

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Editors: Vibin Kundukulam ’11, Jessica Liu ’13; Associate Editors: Sunny X. Long ’13, Sam Range ’13; Staff: Vincent Auyeung G, David Da He G, Brian Hemond G, Perry Hung G, Sheng-Ying Aithne Pao G, Arthur Petron G, Melissa Renée Schumacher G, Martin Segado G, Noah Spies G, John Z. Sun G, Scott Johnston ’03, Martha Angela Wilcox ’08, Eric D. Schmiedl ’09, Biyeun Buczyk ’10, David Chen ’10, Helen Hou ’10, Monica Kahn ’10, Corey Kubber ’10, Alice Li ’10, Diane Rak ’10, Jongu Shin ’10, Christian J. Ternus ’10, William Yee ’10, Michael Yu ’10, Dhaval Adjodah ’11, Jasmine Florentine ’11, Dan Kubaczyk ’11, Michael Y. McCanna ’11, Michael Meyer ’11, Aaron Thom ’11, Allison M. Alwan ’12, Yuanyu Chen ’12, Rachel Fong ’12, Jessica Lin ’12, Rui Luo ’12, Andrew Shum ’12, Meng Heng Touch ’12, Jennifer L. Wong ’12, Feng Wu ’12, Melanie Adams ’13, Arfa Aijazi ’13, Cole Houston ’13, Elijah Mena ’13, Sean Tang ’13, Oscar A. Viquez Rojas ’13.

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editors at Large

Contributing Editors: Austin Chu G, Michael McGraw-Herdeg G, Nick Bushak ’10, Caroline Huang ’10, Monica Gallegos ’11, Robin L. Dahan ’12; Senior Editors: Charles Lin G, Satwiksai Seshasai G, S. Balaji Mani ’10, Andrea Robles ’10, Jessica Witchley ’10, Arkajit Dey ’11.

advisory Board

Paul E. Schindler, Jr. ’74, V. Michael Bove ’83, Barry S. Surman ’84, Robert E. Malchman ’85, Deborah A. Levinson ’91, Jonathan E. D. Richmond PhD ’91, Karen Kaplan ’93, Saul Blumenthal ’98, Frank Dabek ’00, Daniel Ryan Bersak ’02, Eric J. Cholankeril ’02, Jordan Rubin ’02, Nathan Collins SM ’03, Keith J. Winstein ’03, Akshay R. Patil ’04, Tiffany Dohzen ’06, Beckett W. Sterner ’06, Marissa Vogt ’06, Andrew T. Lukmann ’07, Zachary Ozer ’07, Omari Stephens ’08, Marie Y. Thibault ’08, Ricardo Ramirez ’09, Nick Semenkovich ’09, B. D. Colen.

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Editors: Divya Chhabra ’13, Aislyn Schalck ’13; Staff: David M. Templeton ’08, Joanna Kao ’13

The tech (ISSN 0148-9607) is published on Tuesdays and Fridays during the academic year (except during MIT vacations), Wednesdays during January, and monthly during the summer by The Tech, Room W20-483, 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Mass. 02139. Subscriptions are $50.00 per year (third class). POStMAStEr: Please send all address changes to our mailing address: The Tech, P.O. Box 397029, Cambridge, Mass. 02139-7029. tElEPhOnE: Editorial: (617) 253-1541. Business: (617) 258-8324. Facsimile: (617) 258-8226. advertising, subscription, and typesetting rates available. Entire contents © 2010 The Tech. Print-ed on recycled paper by mass web Printing company.

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An article on Friday about the a capella serenades misstated the year of Devorah Kengmana, a Muse. Kengmana is Class of 2012, not 2011. Also, the article stated incor-rectly that the Muses sold three times as many serenades this year as they did last year. In fact they sold two times as many.

Last Friday’s issue of The Tech carried the wrong date. Friday was February 12, not February 10.

CORRECTIONS

What’s so bad about an online ring premiere?Focus on the Brass Rat, not its presentation

By Joseph MaureroPiNioN editor

Future Ring Committees should stop it with the elaborate fake rings and special guests at Premiere and focus more on their core task: designing a ring to represent their class to be revealed at Premiere. Along with that comes the prerequisite that they keep the ring design controlled and only release it when they are ready to. Until they can execute their basic, fundamental jobs cor-rectly, they should drop the frivolities.

I have confidence that this year’s Ring-Comm did not intend to have their design find its way via Google Docs onto three dorm discussion lists. The tone of their fol-low up e-mail and the expressions on the members’ faces when I talked to them af-ter the leak belied that things didn’t go as planned. The efforts they made to secure the ring design were reasonable, and unlike members of the Class of 2009 RingComm, they learned not to use Athena to collabo-rate and share their design.

But ultimately, their efforts failed, and it’s disappointing that the committee did not publicly address this failure throughout the entirety of Premiere or afterwards, even if only to say: “We messed up and we apolo-gize for it.”

Of course, the Ring Committee still dic-tated the main features of Premiere and the 2012 Brass Rat itself. They were the ones who made the design decisions and deter-mined the concepts, events, and ideals em-blazoned in the cast gold. They controlled the official Premiere, which despite the leak, remained the venue that first unveiled the design to a substantial number, perhaps a majority, of the sophomore class.

Future classes should learn from these overlying design choices. Their Ring Com-mittees should more closely follow their given mission and “design a ring that will inspire us while we are here, unite us once we leave, and, above all else, unmistakably symbolize the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” Not an easy task, to be sure, when “us” is a class of over a thousand stu-dents.

Still, this year’s RingComm shows some examples of what not to do. Most obnox-ious are the frequent references to global events with at best tangential connections to the Institute, let alone 2012. Flames on the Class Shank alluding to the 2012 Sum-mer Olympic Games may be interesting, but as RingComm acknowledged at pre-miere, none of us are Olympic athletes. Every fourth class at the Institute has the same relationship to the Games. Why then, are they included on our ring?

Even the beaver, the stalwart of the be-zel, faces the opposite direction this year,

supposedly looking “toward Boston, which embodies the rest of the world.”

MIT’s success does not stem from the rest of the world; like the Athenian owl on the seal shank, we shape the world in ways we choose. Often, our way of doing things conflicts with what is acceptable for the broader world. Hence, concrete “bombs” in public locations make poor hacks and LEDs are not acceptable attire in Logan air-port. The Ring Committee conflates the di-verse background of MIT students with the public relations goal of making MIT appeal to the masses. The former is a byproduct of an admissions process that places an em-phasis on meritocratic potential. The latter is an unavoidable consequence of being physically situated in a part of that broader world which dislikes sodium in their river and maintains that students cannot offi-cially accept greater liability in exchange for fewer restrictions on their behavior. Why does an MIT 2012 Ring celebrate this?

And of course, anyone who has seen the ring shirts has noticed the prominently featured NASA logo. While the Apollo hack makes perfect sense on the ring, the broad-er connection to NASA confuses me. Space is an area that can certainly inspire our class and give us goals to shoot for. Some of the most innovative private companies are actively pursuing space exploration. NASA is an organization that has no clear future, no funding to get back to the moon,

let alone beyond, and by the time of our graduation will be dependent on others to get man into space at all. Given that they’re taxpayer funded and that the majority of America now favors cutting their funding, maybe the true symbolism of NASA is the budget cuts that are sweeping the Institute.

If anything, the leaked ring put things into perspective; Premiere exists for the ring, the ring doesn’t exist to have a fancy Premiere. Ultimately though, the ring is a piece of various metals, and only the mean-ing of the design on it and the memories it evokes for those who wear it are what mat-ter. To the outside world, its potency at job interviews stems from the knowledge that it represents MIT and the skill of its students.

One doesn’t need a video from space or a fake design mocking the Mayans’ 2012 ramblings to unveil a ring and effectively symbolize the class. Six un-annotated PDFs did that task just fine. RingComm’s purpose is to unite the class they represent and give MIT sophomores a chance to come to-gether and celebrate a milestone in their education. Future Premieres and designs should get back to the basics and focus on the ideas, not get super excited about send-ing a hunk of metal to an irrelevant space station on an aging shuttle. The goal of the Rat, after all, is to symbolize the Class of 2012: what we have experienced, what we have done, and how we will influence the world upon graduation.

aLisoN o. maLouf—the tech

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INTuesday, February 16, 2010 The Tech 5

It’s the incompetence, stupidThe Christmas Day attack on Northwest Flight 253 taught us as much about efficient government as it did about national security

By Keith Yoststaff columnist

In George Washington’s farewell address, the president warned of the growing influ-ence of partisanship and the dangers of en-tangling alliances abroad. In Dwight Eisen-hower’s goodbye, the president intoned menacingly about the creation of what he called a “military-industrial complex” and its undue influence on the American po-litical landscape. George Bush’s farewell ad-dress was devoted to one topic — terrorism — and though the tenor was optimistic, the message was clear: Our enemies remain, and they will attack us again.

Though shocking to the moral con-science, the Christmas attack on Flight NW253 was, in some sense, utterly unsur-prising. Regardless of whether such acts are called terrorism or “man-made disas-ters,” not even the most dovish of peaceniks could forget about the existence of Al Qaeda or doubt the persistence of its aims. Even the method of the attack itself was the quin-tessence of rote: PETN explosive smuggled aboard an airplane, nearly identical to a shoe-bombing attempt made years earlier.

And yet, despite the constant coverage of terrorism in the media, despite the entirely ordinary nature of the attack, despite the frequent public warnings of its near inevi-tability, as Americans watched their televi-sions on December 25th, the overwhelming feeling was: “How could this happen?”

As the details slowly made their way to press, frustration grew. Umar Farouk Ab-dulmutallab, the would-be bomber, was the very model of a modern terrorist. Authori-ties knew about the threat he posed well

ahead of time. The attempt got as far as it did because agencies failed to communi-cate with each other. Either this attack was 100 percent preventable, or collectively we must admit our powerlessness in stopping future attacks.

In the aftermath, conservative hawks (most notoriously, Dick Cheney) were quick to jump on the president, accusing him of having grown complacent with the risks he was elected to manage. While this may have succeeded in further raising the issue of na-

tional security to the fore of voters’ minds (an issue on which Republicans poll favor-ably against Democrats), it doesn’t appear that anyone not already pre-disposed to believing Democrats are soft on terrorism actually changed their minds. Yemen, the country from which the attack originated, fights terrorism with a ferocity unique to those who feel the knife at their throat; their security forces routinely engage in warrant-less search and seizure, torture, and extra-judicial executions. Even if Obama had ever pressured the Yemenis to tone down their brutality, many Americans would think him justified, even in hindsight of NW253.

What has irked many Americans is not the sense that the president is a big liberal softie, but that he, much like his predeces-sor, cannot by his will alone command gov-ernment to be competent. What has shat-tered is not our sense of security, but the false impression we had that Obama would make the trains run on time. A promise im-plicit in Obama’s presidential campaign was that he, in stark contrast to the experience of the past eight years, would head a smooth-er, more efficient government and better perform the sorts of duties that Americans unanimously agree should be performed. The Obama administration was to be trans-parent, competent, and free of corruption — a gleaming example of government at its best. For No Drama Obama, this sort of fail-ure was simply not supposed to happen.

Even more damning than the failure it-self was the public relations spin that was attempted immediately afterward. Both Robert Gibbs, the White House press sec-retary, and Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security, asserted that “the system worked,” a claim so patently absurd that it must have required at least one will-ful act of ignorance to make it, either in be-lieving that the system actually worked, or in believing Americans would believe the system worked. As the spiritual successor to “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job” and “Mission Accomplished,” “The system worked” was a painful reminder that gov-ernments are governments — messy, inept, and reflexively defensive.

Americans have a tendency to ascribe every little failure and victory to the com-mander-in-chief. In the popular mind, pres-idents personally command the economy,

wage our wars, and simultaneously govern every federal agency from the CIA to the FDA. In reality, the president is one man, and his abilities and powers are quite lim-ited. He does not stand astride economic currents, taming them with his indomitable will, he does not involve himself in the nit-ty-gritty of military operations, nor does he control the abstract grand forces that con-tribute to strategic success or failure, and most certainly he lacks the hours in the day to strictly oversee the large and labyrinthine organizations that perform the day-to-day of the government’s work.

In that context, saying, as Obama does now, that intelligence failures are systemic, and thus persistent no matter who is presi-dent, is a valid form of defense. But the de-fense, however valid, is unsatisfying. Not only does it imply that on some level we are powerless to stop bad things (the antithesis of “Yes We Can”), but it also suggests that Obama does not deserve credit for poten-tial future victories and perhaps that Bush did not deserve blame for many of his past failings. After all the negative attacks Dem-ocrats lobbed at Republicans and all the promises Democrats made, NW253 smacks of a great deceit revealed. Contrary to what we had been told, Democrats do not hold the magical keys to a better government.

Republicans may very well get good mileage out of NW253 as a national secu-rity issue. Given the frequency with which many of them had warned Obama an attack was coming, that is their right. But the big-ger lesson here is that governments are big, ugly, and stupid, and remain so even when a pretty-faced reformer enters the White House.

Guest Column

MIT needs to take a hard look at labor relationsThe administration is jeopardizing the school’s long-term welfare by cutting employee benefits

By Alexi Goranov, Elcin Unal and Michael Baratta

The most visible and most highly touted aspects of MIT are its faculty and student body. But amid the faculty and students are thousands of hard workers who make possible everything that students and re-searchers do. The MIT custodians, admin-istrative assistants, police, and countless other employees are just as much part of the MIT culture and success as are the stu-dents, faculty, and those ridiculously over-worked and underpaid things commonly called post-docs. For anyone who consid-ers the importance of the MIT labor force, it is immediately clear that MIT’s success de-pends on the groundskeepers, police, staff, custodians, and other facilities personnel. Many of the MIT workers have been on campus for a long time and know the ins-and-outs of the facilities better than anyone else. They know where money is wasted and where inefficiencies arise. With this in mind, it is only logical that the top MIT administrators should make it a priority to maintain and invest in the MIT workforce. MIT administration should consider the campus workforce as an essential partner that is to be respected as much as the fac-ulty and student bodies.

The workers and worker organizations should be invited to participate in impor-tant decision-making that impacts the MIT community and workers. It is a hallmark of democracy to participate in decisions that affects oneself. Yet, the MIT Budget Task Force had no worker representatives and only one or two token student representa-tives per Task Force Committee. Just to put this in perspective, the MIT student to facul-

ty ratio is about 4-to-1, so to keep represen-tation proportional there should have been at least four times more students than fac-ulty on the committees, which was far from the case. And the fact that there were no labor representatives present in the Budget Task Force, which was incidentally called “Institute-wide,” also sent a chilling mes-sage to the workers about where they stand on the proverbial “totem pole.” The same Task Force produced recommendations that will have a serious effect on the MIT student population and even more severe effects on MIT workers, in terms of retirement and health care benefit cuts and potential lay-offs. So, again, one has to either admit that MIT is not functioning democratically, or that democracy at MIT does not extend to the workers, and barely reaches students.

All these concerns are not just an aca-demic exercise in political science. The MIT police bargaining unit, the MIT Campus Police Association, is facing a tough time obtaining a fair contract with MIT. Is it not fair for them to obtain a minimal raise to adjust for an increase in the cost of living and to keep health care benefit costs stable? Instead, MIT is denying them a raise and is essentially increasing the cost of health care benefits. It is a de facto pay cut. According to the MIT Campus Police Association, the cost of health care to the employee has ris-en by a factor of 4.2 (from $1,584 to $6,636) over 13 years, while the cost to MIT has in-creased by 2.5 times. This trend of shifting the cost to the employee has two effects. It reduces the quality of living for MIT work-ers, like the police, which could have a se-vere human cost.

The cost of health insurance as a per-centage of annual income has increased from 4.4 percent in 1996 to 12 percent in 2009. Imagine a family member with a seri-ous health condition and an increasing cost of health insurance. Not a pretty picture. It is worth remembering that approximately 50 percent of bankruptcies in the US are due to health care expenses. But there is also a cost to the MIT community as a whole. A worker who is not respected by his or her employ-ers will not tend to respect his or her work.

Should the MIT community feel safer know-ing that the MIT police are not respected by the top MIT administrators, that they are underpaid, and reduced in number?

The potential cuts in benefits are not likely to be limited to the MIT police. MIT custodians and facilities personnel are wor-ried that the MIT administration will seek health care and retirement benefit reduc-tions, as outlined in the MIT Budget Task Force proposals, in their upcoming nego-tiations. MIT workers did not decide where MIT should invest its endowment and they were not invited to participate in the Budget

Task Force decisions, yet they are likely to get stuck making the most severe conces-sions, in terms of human cost. Since a fac-ulty member cannot fix a cold room that is out of order, or fix a leak in the pipes in the ceiling, we need the MIT laborers to be re-spected, and treated fairly, so that they can do their job promptly and with dignity.

Administrators have used the economic crisis as an excuse to justify the proposed cuts in worker benefits. It is quite curious that as the administration argues about the need to cut spending, there are several large and very expensive projects in the works (the new Koch Institute, or the Sloan School extension). In 2008, MIT issued a $325 mil-lion bond to help finance these projects. As pointed out by the the tech on Nov. 17, 2009 (“2007–2008 Top Salaries at MIT, With a Bit of History”), top administrators are being paid in the hundreds of thousands with re-cent increases in pay ranging from $12,000 to $313,141.

Here are some simple ideas to accom-modate the needs of workers without MIT running further in debt:

1. Bring workers, not just their supervi-sors, to the decision making table. Workers know MIT well and can facilitate efficiency well. They can also defend their worker’s rights and interests better when they are a part of the decision making body. In addi-tion, workers can identify projects that can be done in-house without the necessity of hiring expensive outside contractors.

2. Start cutting the salaries of the high-est paid MIT administrators and faculty before shifting more costs to the workers. Or use the funds available for raises to top administrators and faculty and shift them to offset costs incurred by maintaining the health care and retirement benefits of work-ers at the current level. The fact that top ad-ministrators and faculty are getting paid in the hundreds of thousands while workers are getting their benefits cut is a slap in the workers face, to put it mildly.

3. Wealthy donors give to MIT. Maybe during the next fund-raiser event, MIT ad-ministrators and faculty can raise few mil-lion for the workers. It is worth the trouble.

4. MIT should make publicly available detailed financial information of the Insti-tute’s expenditures, investments, and sala-ries so that the MIT community, as a whole, can make an informed decision as to wheth-er the budget cut proposals are justified.

We hope the MIT community starts de-manding that our top administrators show respect to workers and award them fair and just contracts. We, the MIT community, should understand that this is a worthy long term investment. We, the MIT students, fac-ulty, post-docs, and researchers, depend on the MIT workers’ dedication and deter-mination to do their job, so that we can do ours. It is time to return the favor and show the workers that we appreciate their effort. Let’s make them feel that they are part of MIT, not just a second-rate, hired help.

alexi Goranov and Elcin unal are post-doctoral fellows at the mit Koch institute. michael Baratta is a postdoctoral associate in the Program in media arts and sciences.

In the popular mind, presidents personally command the economy, wage our wars, and simultaneously govern every federal agency from the CIA to the FDA.

It is quite curious that as the administration argues about the need to cut spending, there are several large and very expensive projects in the works.

MIT’s success depends on the groundskeepers, police, staff, custodians, and other facilities personnel.

6 The Tech Tuesday, February 16, 2010

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Various states of undress

When it’s said and done, will she spit it out or swallow?

By m.

I was recently talking to a male friend about sex and what-not — you know, the usual — when he told me that he would nev-er kiss a girl who had just gone down on him.

Really? Really? I thought that kind of mentality was a thing of the past, along with shoulder pads and MC Hammer pants, but the distaste for cock is quite common. Appar-ently, some guys will request the dick-sucker brushes his or her teeth, or at the very least drinks a glass of water to flush the peen-ness out. Girls will let guys come in their mouth, only to spit it out right away. Since when is dick so gross?

I mean, let’s be quite objective for just a second: Dick certainly doesn’t taste good and jizz doesn’t taste like honey, contrary to what guys would love for us to think. But, as with many things in life, you have to just suck it up and do it, which is why I’m here to make a case for swallowing spooge.

Some girls will let the guy come in their mouth and then spit it out, but, as anybody

who has tried that approach can tell you, it is not very practical. Taking it in your mouth only to spit it out right after is quite coun-terproductive: Trying to find a place to dis-pose of the evidence is harder than it seems,

and you just end up running around with a mouthful of the cream while trying to locate the nearest bathroom. The fastest — not to mention politest — way to get rid of the taste is to swallow. As another friend puts it, “It’s not only good if a girl swallows, it’s also good manners.”

I can think of things grosser than jizz, like nacho cheese and ranch dressing (which

make me wish I could douse my salad with spunk and dip my chips in a bowl of baby gravy). Anyway, semen is not some fine wine that’s meant to be swished around to be fully savored, so the taste, good or bad, is gone as fast as you can swallow. The one thing spooge and wine do have in common is that they are more of an acquired taste than anything. Nei-ther tastes pleasant the first time around, of course, but in time you learn to tolerate the taste and even appreciate the nuances and variations in flavor. And for those of you with dietary concerns, do not fret: A teaspoon of the good stuff has about five to seven calories and is loaded with protein.

But if you’re still convinced that swallow-ing isn’t your thing, let me pose this question: Is there really anything better than the satis-faction of a job well done? The same way a semester’s worth of hard work is validated by getting an A, a mouthful of cum lets you know that all your hard work has paid off. (After all, they don’t call it a job for nothing, do they?) Coming in your mouth is like a guy’s way of high-fiving you, except with his dick instead

of his hand, which is better anyway because everybody gets to slap his hand, but not ev-erybody gets to suck his dick. I hope.

Now that I’ve got the fellas’ attention, I will turn my preaching to them for a hot sec-ond. A quick survey confirmed that my male friend was not alone and that more guys than I thought won’t touch lips with a girl after get-ting fellated, especially if they came. I can’t stress this enough: You need to kiss your partner after getting head. I don’t give a shit if you’re grossed out by it; I just made a fucking case for girls swallowing your load! It shows her you are comfortable with your body, and it’s also a nice way of thanking her for spend-ing some time in your crotch. (A girl even told me she feels downright insulted when a guy refuses to kiss her after oral.) Think of it as a Pavlovian experiment: The more often you kiss her after oral, the more she will feel like it’s okay to go down on you. I think everybody wins there.

M. is a junior in Course 10 and, in case it wasn’t clear, she swallows. She can be reached at undress@tech.mit.edu.

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010 The Tech 7

Hard SudokuSolution, page 9

5 1 6 42 7 9 1

1 6 72 5 8

3 89 3 2

1 3 64 8 3 2

8 9 2 3Instructions: Fill in the grid so that each column, row, and 3 by 3 grid contains exactly one of each of the digits 1 through 9.

Crossword PuzzleSolution, page 9

ACROSS 1 Start of Jamie

Lee Curtis quip 5 Flotilla units 10 Indian nanny 14 Confess 15 Bicycle part 16 Bathe 17 Info 18 Sermonize 19 Bread buy 20 “Car Talk”

broadcaster 22 Make haste 23 Formerly,

formerly 24 Part 2 of quip 29 Serialized

segment 30 __ Paulo, Brazil 31 PC key 32 Frasier Crane’s

brother 35 Rich kid in

“Nancy” 39 Caresses 41 Part 3 of quip 43 Part of a

hammerhead 44 Assert 46 Used a hand

signal 48 Bern’s river 49 Want __

51 Diplomatic office 53 Part 4 of quip 58 NYC theatrical

award 59 Fastener 60 Ed.’s work pile 61 Grass stalk 62 In a vertical line 64 Follow orders 68 Palm type 69 Unworldly 70 Latvian capital 71 Portent 72 Dismal 73 End of quip

DOWn 1 June celebrant 2 Reproductive

cells 3 “__ as a

Stranger” 4 Banjo sounds 5 Infrequent 6 That girl 7 Pocatello’s place 8 Barbecue’s place 9 Makes smooth 10 Lifter’s shout 11 New Zealand

native 12 Nautical

command 13 Judges weight by

lifting 21 Menial worker 24 Army vehicles 25 Surprise win 26 Judgments 27 Subordinate to 28 Prohibit 33 Gabor sister 34 Cut off 36 Smallest amount 37 Canine tether 38 Way to have

corned beef 40 Remained 42 Call to mind 45 Old name for

Tokyo 47 Corporate

A.K.A.s 50 Had dinner 52 Accumulate, as

gas on liquid surface

53 Body’s trunk 54 Construction

piece 55 Feudal lord 56 More despicable 57 Harden 63 Hamm or Farrow 65 Brief life story 66 Psyche division 67 Tibetan beast

Dilbert® by Scott Adams

Steal My Comic� by Michael Ciuffo

8 The Tech Tuesday, February 16, 2010

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retrieve the ring, melt it down and incorporate it into the gold Brass Rats, which the class will receive in late April. “We’re currently trying to get the ring back from space as we would very much like to include it in the gold rings,” said Schaik.

Rutuparna Das ’12 was one of many students at the Ring Premiere who was excited to learn that the first ring was in space. “We’re gonna have the universe in our hands because the universe was embedded into the ring!” Das said.

Following tradition, RingComm first presented a ring spoof based on the Mayan 2012 apocalypse. The design included the sacrifice of TEAL clickers, Bea-verzilla vs. Athena Titans, and an event over the dome which “suggested a thermonuclear weapon” accord-

ing to the Vice Chair of the Ring Committee, Kimberly M. Sparling ’12. Sparling said that the fake design was lead mainly by Tess E. Schmidt ’12 and Ruaridh “Rory” R. Macdonald ’12.

Near the end of the presentation, the committee presented a video clip from Creamer, who was record-ed aboard the International Space Station. Creamer congratulated the class of 2012 on their new Brass Rat, and said: “As I look out the Space Station’s windows, and see our Moon, I realize that MIT helped me get into orbit and get onto the International Space Sta-tion. And I also know that MIT will help us return to the moon as well. Come and join me in our future and lead our world to greater tomorrows.”

The committee was inspired by last year’s celebra-tion of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, which happened around the time that the ring com-mittee was first asked to think about the ring design. “Being able to see all these things between MIT and NASA gave us the idea of putting this [aspect of MIT] on the ring,” Sparling said.

The committee, with aid from some members of the Aeronautics and Astronautics department, whose names the Ring Committee has decided not to reveal for privacy, coordinated with NASA to send the ring to space. Schaik said, “NASA was excited to help [us]…We are thankful to NASA for getting our ring into the payload of the shuttle,”

The Brass Rat delivery will occur on April 30, at the Boston Public Library. More information on the 2012 Brass Rat can be found on http://twentytwelve.mit.edu/ring/.

Problems with card access systemLast week on Monday, many doors, such as those in the Stata cen-

ter, did not automatically unlock at their scheduled times. The prob-lem was a database failure in the system that controls doors across campus, according to Thomas W. Komola, a project manager in the Security and Emergency Management Office.

The root cause of the problem remains unclear.Komola said the problem began around 5 a.m. Monday, Feb. 8, and

was resolved about 21 hours later, or 6 a.m. Tuesday. In addition to keeping doors from unlocking as scheduled, the database failure pre-vented anyone from adding new data to the system.

Komola said that the system failure did not unlock any previously-locked doors. The system is called CCURE (pronounced “secure”).

The security office plans to deploy a second instance of the data-base to increase reliability, Komola said.

—John A. Hawkinson

Ring Premiere, from Page 1

Astronaut talks to 2012 class

Pike members may be living in dorms

community and enjoy a fraternity experience,” the consultants wrote in an e-mail sent to Next House on Monday.

The national website says the fraternity has “maintained the larg-est average chapter and pledge class size for most of the past 20 years,” and that the group focuses on developing “integrity, intellect,

and high moral character” in its members.

In 1970, the Eta Delta chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha, then known as PiKa, entered the Inter-Fraternity Council as an all-male fraternity, but became co-ed in 1975 at the request of its members. Five years later, MIT’s PiKa left the national organization and became an inde-pendent living group, known today as pika.

Pike, from Page 1

ElizAbEtH K. D’AriEnzo

7.013 student Valerie J. Chia ’13 gets Ser-enaded by the Logs on Friday outside of 26-100. Serenades are one of MIT’s Valentine’s Day traditions.

Free food on Sundays and Thursdays.

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join@tt.mit.eduW20-483, 617-253-1541

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Free food after 11pm.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 The Tech 9

Addir Fellows — MIT Interfaith Dialogue Community Lecture Series

ONE VOICE Palestinian and Israeli Youth leaders

seeking peace in the Mid-East

TUESDAY February 16, 2010

7:00 pm

W11—Religious Activities Center

Main Dining Room(corner Amherst St. and Mass. Ave.)

Dessert will be served.

Questions: ora@mit.eduWebsite:

studentlife.mit.edu/rl/addir_fellows

What is OneVoice?

The OneVoice Movement is an international

mainstream grassroots movement with over

650,000 signatories in roughly equal numbers

both in Israel and in Palestine, and 1,800 highly-

trained youth leaders. It aims to amplify the voice

of the overwhelming but heretofore silent major-

ity of moderates who wish for peace and pros-

perity, empowering them to demand accountabil-

ity from elected representatives and work toward

a two-state solution guaranteeing an end to

occupation and violence, and a viable, indepen-

dent Palestinian state at peace with Israel. Find

out more at: www.OneVoiceMovement.org

This event is sponsored by:

Addir Fellows

MIT Interfaith Dialogue Program

The above banners are asking:

"What are YOU willing to do to end the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Made possible by the Council for the Arts at MIT

Free tickets for MIT students!Boston Chamber Music SocietySunday, February 21 at 7:30pmSanders Theater, Harvard Square, CambridgeMozart Fantasia in F minor, K. 608, arr. for Piano Four HandsBeethoven Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op. 70, No. 2Beethoven Grosse Fuge, for Piano Four Hands, Op. 134Brahms Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 101

Boston Modern Orchestra Project: Strings AttachedSaturday, March 6, 2010 at 8pmJordan Hall at New England Conservatory, Boston

Nathan Ball Stained Glass (2009)Scott Wheeler Crazy Weather (2004)Stephen Hartke Alvorada (1983)Milton Babbitt Correspondences for string orchestra and synthesized tape (1967)Betty Olivero Neharót Neharót (2006)Béla Bartók Divertimento (1940)

Tickets available at the MIT Office of the Arts (E15-205) Monday - Friday, 2:30 - 5:30pm in person, first-come, first-served only

2 tickets per valid MIT student IDhttp://web.mit.edu/arts/see/freetickets/index.html

Special Offer: American Repertory Theater Student Pass Program!50% discount on $60 ART Student Pass Program for MIT students for the ART season pass.

Use code MITPASS to purchase $30 passes subsidized by the Council for the Arts at MIT.

This pass covers 5 tickets for the remainder of the season, to be used in any combination --i.e., you can use one ticket to five shows, or five tickets to one show.

Purchase online at www.americanrepertorytheater.org or by phone at 617/547-8300.

Students must show a valid MIT student ID upon redemption of pass.

I got a scholarship eventually to do science and that’s how I ended up in science.

DD: I had a Canadian scholar-ship to go off to university to do sci-ence, natural sciences, and return to teach, which I did. I taught for two years in St. Kitts and then realized I needed something more substan-tial as a profession especially when I knew then I was going to become involved in politics, I needed some-thing substantial and so I chose medicine.

TT: You mentioned an arts back-ground. I’m wondering what that is in particular?

DD: [Before university] I studied English and European history with a concentration in Caribbean history, because of the relationship between the Caribbean and Europe at that time...At the same time I did biology. I had a choice and then as I said the opportunity came from the science end so I did that.

TT: You’ve mentioned an inten-tion to go into politics even while being a doctor. So when did that interest develop and how long have you had it?

DD: My community in St. Kitts, where I was born, was the com-munity that produced our first na-tional hero, who was a cousin of mine and so, in a way, I was politi-cally inclined early on. When I came back to St. Kitts after doing my first degree, naturally I became involved in politics...I became involved in the youth arm of the Labor Party as its leader in 1979. And then I went off to university because at that time ac-tually the labor party had been in of-fice for quite awhile and there were signs that it needed to be supported by the young people.

TT: Would you care to elaborate on that?

DD: [The labor party developed out of the movement] against colo-nialism and the struggles to provide the mass of the people with proper social support systems [that] were being really denied the mass of the people...The party really had been in office...from the 50s until when my own turn came to be part of the movement back in 1979...[T]he party needed to have the younger people take over the reigns of leadership and so the party had begun to lose its attraction for the younger gen-eration...[In 1979] I had been asked to run for political office and I felt it wasn’t a good time [because] I was able to see that the party was going to be in trouble. And so I went off to university in ‘79, got a career and profession that I love that I can live off of and then in came back in 1984 to St. Kitts.

TT: Do you think your back-ground in medicine has contributed in any way to your politics?

DD: Politics is a people profes-sion. I call it a profession; people call it a game. It’s a people profession be-cause you need to understand peo-ple. You need to be able understand both those you are working with and those you are seeking to represent. And I think I had a good opportunity being a medical doctor, running a private practice, to learn to listen to people and to learn to know people’s issues...so I have found my profes-sion in medicine exceptionally help-ful in managing the state.

TT: The Prime Minister of Trini-dad came to speak here and he has a background in science. Is that com-mon in the Caribbean?

DD: There was a time when Ca-ribbean politics was dominated by lawyers and trade unionists. But in recent times we’ve had some lead-ers who have had background in sci-ence and medicine.

TT: It sounds like one of the more significant things that happened in St. Kitts under your leadership is the closing of the sugar industry in 1995. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about that and the economic development that’s happened since then.

DD: The transformation of the economy in St. Kitts and Nevis has been largely manifested through the closure of the sugar industry, and although I’d say...new global trading arrangements forced that decision on the part of the government and the people, I think it was really the very best thing that could have hap-pened to St. Kitts and Nevis at this time because it created opportuni-ties for new ventures in economic development...We thought that we would go into to services, led by hos-pitality and tourism, financial servic-es, information and communication technology services, and, recently, we have discovered the importance of higher education services.

More than anything else, it’s the distribution of the land between ordinary people that matters, be-cause in the days when sugar was king the entire mass of the country was owned by about four or five families and the people did not own land. People can now have their own residential homes built...This activ-ity to a large extent is what has kept the economy afloat over the last few months whereas you’ve seen serious downturn in economic activity in several countries, construction in-dustry has kept very active in St. Kitts and Nevis.

TT: What do you think are the particular challenges and advan-tages of being the smallest country in the western hemisphere?

DD: I think there’s a very peculiar attraction that it brings. It allows the leadership of the country and the people of the country to intimately interact with each other and thus the issues...can be identified and solu-tions can be found through a con-sultative type of democratic system which I think is remarkable that can be emulated by the rest of the world... Democracy should flourish when the leaders can hear firsthand what the people are saying, when they can feel the pain of the people...It’s a peculiar situation that we cherish.

TT: There are a lot of students at MIT in all sorts of majors, from biology to economics to computer science, who are interested in devel-opment. Do you have any advice for them?

DD: Irrespective of what aspect of development that one’s engaged in, it has to be sustainable develop-ment. I think it is not just a buzz word; it has meaning for countries like ours in the Caribbean region. [We must at] all times remember the sensitivity there is between the environment and man; we have to ensure that we are always aware that the way we live today can prevent the good living of those in the future, and so I believe that sustainable de-velopment should always be fore-most in your mind.

Douglas, from Page 1

Leading St. Kitts

Solution to Crosswordfrom page 7

Solution to Sudokufrom page 7

8 5 7 2 1 6 4 9 33 6 2 7 9 4 8 1 59 1 4 3 5 8 6 2 72 9 5 8 3 7 1 4 64 3 1 5 6 2 7 8 97 8 6 1 4 9 3 5 21 2 3 4 7 5 9 6 85 4 9 6 8 3 2 7 16 7 8 9 2 1 5 3 4

10 The Tech Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 The Tech 11

from hearing expert opinions. The details of these students’ and pro-fessors’ experiences vary widely, but they share a common theme of working to bolster support for and understand science in the federal government.

Swiston, a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, first connected with the office in 2006 through SPI’s Science Policy Bootcamp, an annu-al IAP seminar taught by Bonvillian about the basics of science policy creation. Since then, Swiston has been involved in each annual Con-gressional Visits Day, during which scientists and engineers, including graduate students from universities throughout the country, descend upon Washington to lobby for fed-eral support for science and engi-neering research and education. The Washington Office supports the MIT students who attend by helping them arrange meeting with officials and teaching the students “how to lobby and advocate, make impactful messages, and consider political realities,” said Swiston.

The students speak mostly with staff that support members of Con-gress, but some meetings take place with the senators and representa-tives themselves. Last year, Swiston said the students had an exciting moment when they met with Mas-sachusetts Representative Edward J. Markey on the United States Capi-tol rotunda during one of his breaks between votes.

During their 20 minute conver-sation, Swiston said that Markey asked members of the group to tell him about their research and asked for their opinion on the America Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, which Markey cosponored. “He was very receptive to criticism,” Swiston said.

Getting MIT voices heardLara M. Pierpoint, a PhD stu-

dent in the Engineering Systems Division, said she “fell in love with the policy world,” as an undergrad-uate while interning at the National Academy of Sciences. Enrolling in the Technology and Policy Pro-gram and Department of Nuclear Engineering at MIT for her Master’s felt natural. She has interacted with policy makers in D.C. in a variety of contexts, including trips with the Technology and Policy program and the MIT Energy Club, which she led as president in the 2008-2009 aca-demic year, and on her own, as an intern at the Department of Energy in the summer of 2006. Pierpoint called the Washington Office an “invaluable resource” during many of her trips to D.C. in part because the staff are “very steeped in what-ever is going on [in Washington] at the time.”

While Swiston and Pierpoint delved into the policy world as grad-uate students, Scott A. Uebelhart ’98 earned his Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. in the Department of Aero-nautics and Astronautics at MIT be-fore getting involved in policy. Now, as a postdoctoral researcher in the Science, Technology, and Society Program’s Space, Policy, and Soci-ety Research Group, Uebelhart is collaborating on a policy-oriented white paper entitled “The Future of Human Spaceflight.”

The idea for the paper arose, Uebelhart said, in conversations between Bonvillian and the direc-tors of the Science, Technology, and Society program. Once the pa-per was finished in December 2008, he said, the Washington Office staff, organized a trip to Washington for the paper’s authors to discuss their work with those policy makers who were looking at it.

“The most impressive meet-ing was with the Obama transi-tion team for NASA,” whose leader went on to become the second-in-command at NASA, Uebelhart said. He said he felt that the paper may have sparked some conversations

among the policy makers about hu-man space flight.

Like Uebelhart, physics profes-sor and Vice President for Research Claude R. Canizares, got started in policy after developing a full-fledged research career. Today he spends a lot of his time on policy, often in collaboration with the Washington Office. He plays a key role in MIT’s efforts to deal with, as he puts it, “is-sues important to all research uni-versities.” This sometimes means “trying to advocate for why it’s good to have basic research,” he said, but at other times means advocating for specific policies or programs.

Canizares’s research at NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory was what originally drew him into pol-icy work, but now he works on a range of issues that bring him down to D.C. a few days each month, by his own estimates.

Recently, he said, he has devot-ed effort to reforming export con-trol regulations which, he described which sound “a little obscure, but affect us [at MIT] in complicated ways.” The regulations control not only the export of physical objects but also the sharing of information and ideas with foreign nationals, Canizares explained. The regula-tions are outdated and unneces-sarily restrictive, he said, and can cause problems for graduate stu-dents who are not US citizens who need to use their own labs’ data and equipment for their research. He said that a report by a National Academy of Sciences committee he sits on has prompted President Obama to request a review of the regulations.

Thinking like a Washingtonian

Uebelhart, Swiston, Pierpoint, Canizares, and the staff of the MIT Washington Office agree that they have found Washington officials to be a receptive audience. “People [in Washington], by and large, despite the fact that they get a bad rap, are really trying hard to do the right thing and are dealing with a huge number of complex issues,” Caniza-res said. “They are grateful for a clear statement of an issue and why you are arguing for it...I’ve never had anyone be dismissive.” And, “frankly,” he said, “the MIT name carries a fair amount of weight.”

Still, they know that things work differently in MIT and D.C.

Pierpoint’s MIT affiliation placed her in an awkward position at the beginning of her internship of the Department of Energy. Professors in the Department of Nuclear Sci-ence and Engineering had recently expressed strong disapproval of a nuclear agenda that her office was working to implement. The pro-fessors thought many parts of the agenda were premature, while the Department of Energy saw itself taking advantage of a brief political window of opportunity, Pierpoint said.

Uebelhart said that as a lifelong engineer, he learned the impor-tance of looking at issues from a policy perspective when writing his white paper and visiting Wash-ington. He initially felt surprised, he said, to find that some techni-cal and research aspects of space flight programs mattered less to congresspeople than “these ideas of pride, prestige, and global lead-ership” which he learned “are the bread and butter on Capitol hill.”

He learned that “strong con-nections” matter in D.C.: “From an engineering or science perspective, you say the policy world sounds fuzzy...but it’s where all our funding comes from, and I think that at least having an appreciation for that is important,” he said.

MIT president Susan J. Hock-field visits Washington almost every month to meet with senior agency and administrative officials and members of Congress Bonvil-lian said, who said she has made “a commitment to MIT’s national role that’s unusual for university presi-

dents,” Bonvillian said. Her efforts to promote the MIT Energy Initia-tive have been particularly impact-ful, said Bonvillian, and in the past year, MIT provided about 20 wit-nesses to energy policy hearings in Congress.

Fox said she thinks that, at the same time, congressional staff have become better educated in the sci-ences and more receptive to tech-nical perspectives. “In a lot of ways congressional staff has jumped up a notch and really understand and appreciate [scientific] issues,” she said.

Since over 70 percent of MIT’s research funding comes from the federal government, the entire MIT community can hope to benefit from these developments, especial-ly if they believe, as Bonvillian does that, “if US innovation and science and technology are healthy, then it will be fine.”

Now accepting applications from MIT undergraduate and graduate students to serve on the Board of Directors during the 2010-11 academic year!

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Wed, Feb 17, 2010 | 4:30p - 6:00pE40-496 | Lucian Pye Conf Rm, CIS

1 Amherst St, Cambridge

Ron Haviv/VII Courtesy Hasted Hunt Gallery

A STARR FORUM EVENT | MIT Center for International Studies & Boston Swiss Consulate | http://web.mit.edu/cis/

Challenges Facing the United Nations

Swiss Ambassador to the UN, Peter Maurer, will present a "state of the union" address concerning

the challenges facing the United Nations.

A Q&A and Swiss-style reception will conclude the talk.

Students lobby in WashingtonWashington, from Page 1

AshWednesday

worship servicewith imposition of ashes

wednesday, february 175:15 pm mit chapel

followed by dinner & discussion on the 10 CommandmentsAll are welcome — sponsored by lem —web.mit.edu/lem

join@tt.mit.eduW20-483, 617-253-1541

Word.ads@tt.mit.edu

W20-483, 617-253-1541

Put yourad here.

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p12 The Tech Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Wednesday, February 10Men’s Volleyball vs. Harvard University 7 p.m., Rockwell Cage

Upcoming Home events

Men’s Basketball

saturday, 2/13

vs. U.S. Coast Guard Academy W 64-53

Women’s Basketball

saturday, 2/13

at Mount Holyoke College L 60-50

Men’s Volleyball

saturday, 2/13

vs. Regis College W 3-0

vs. Daniel Webster College W 3-0

Monday, 2/15

vs. Lesley University W 3-0

scoReBoARD

By Greg McKeeverDaper Staff

The No. 11 ranked MIT men’s basketball team raced out to a 23–3 lead and did not look back en route to a 64–53 win over Coast Guard in NEWMAC play on Sat-urday afternoon. The win clinch-es at least a share of the NEW-MAC regular season title for the Cardinal and Gray, who improve to 21–2 and 9–1 in conference play, and now lead second-place Springfield by two full games in the standings. The 21 wins is a program high for a season, equal-ing the mark set in 2005–06 and 2008–09. Coast Guard falls to 7–14 (4–7 NEWMAC) with the loss.

After an Eric Hudson free throw to open the scoring for Coast Guard, the Engineers reeled off the game’s next 15 points over a 5:46 stretch. Willard J. “Billy” Johnson ’09, William Tashman ’13 and Noel Hollingsworth ’12 each tallied five points during the

spurt. Hudson ended the Coast Guard drought with a layup at the 13:24 mark, but Tech would respond with eight more points, including a pair of threes, to go up, 23–3, just over nine minutes in. MIT connected on five three-point shots during its opening outburst.

Coast Guard would narrow the gap toward the end of the half with an 11–4 run, including back-to-back threes from Greg Marshall and Brett Hundley, getting within 11 with just under two minutes to go. However, MIT would score on its next three possessions to in-crease the lead back to 18.

The Engineers hit on 13-of-25 (52 percent) shots in the first half, including six from beyond the arc. Coast Guard struggled to find the mark over the first 20 minutes, shooting just 23.1 percent from the field and two-of-seven from three.

Coast Guard made a late run in the second, outscoring Tech,

7–2, over a three and a half minute stretch, closing to within 12 with 2:29 remaining. However, Billy Bender found Mitchell Kates un-der the basket for an open layup on the next possession to end the spurt and send the Cardinal and Gray to the win.

Hollingsworth was one of three MIT players to finish in double figures, with 17 points, including four-of-six from three-point range, to go along with eight rebounds. Tashman recorded a double-double of 13 points and 11 boards, also adding four as-sists. Johnson added 13 points in his final regular season home game for Tech.

MIT returns to action on Wednesday, February 17 for its first of two games on the road to finish up the regular season. The Engineers travel to Wheaton Col-lege to take on the Lyons, the only Division III opponents to defeat them on the season. The game begins at 5:30 p.m.

AtHletes’ coRneROn Saturday, February 13, the MIT Theatre

on Ice team competed at the Skating Club of New York Showcase, a United States Figure Skat-ing-sanctioned competition in theatrical skating held in New York City. The team placed second in the Production Ensemble event.

Choreographed and coached by Rebecca Na-gle, the team put on the tale of a wedding party that develops a catastrophic but hilarious twist. The team skated to a medley of wedding-themed music, including “Going to the Chapel,” “Here Comes the Bride,” “Where Were You on our Wed-ding Day,” and “You Can’t Hurry Love.” Brides-maids Katherine J. Fang ’12, Victoria W. Lee ’10, Ann Ouyang ’11, Carla Rivas G, Aubrey L. Samost ’10, Aviva R. Siegel ’13, and Allie Stiny escort the bride, Diana S. Cheng ‘04, while groomsmen Mickey Barry and Jessica A. Eisenstein ’06 escort the groom, Shawn Pan ‘12, to the chapel to get married. At the last minute, however, Cheng has second thoughts and sprints off, leaving Pan and his groomsmen in a frantic search for the bride. The wedding party then breaks off to showcase individual elements such as spirals and lunges, a

splice through toe-loop sequence, and also indi-vidual jumps. In the end, the wedding party real-izes that “You Can’t Hurry Love,” and the groom and groomsmen forgive Cheng enough to lift her in the program’s grand finale.

“It’s a really fun program — just in time for Valentine’s Day!” Ouyang said. “The program has really grown in participation since the team was founded. It’s a great experience because people think of skating as a very individual sport, but we’ve showed that team programs are also excit-ing and fun.”

MIT’s Theatre on Ice team was founded in 2007. In 2008, the team competed at the 13th An-nual International Theater on Ice competition, held at the Gordon H. Paquette Arena in Burling-ton, placing fifth. Last year, the team placed first in the Production Ensemble event at the Skating Club of New York Showcase.

Upcoming team events include an intercol-legiate skating competition co-hosted by the MIT Figure Skating Club and Boston University Figure Skating Club on February 27—28 at the Johnson Ice Rink and MIT Figure Skating Club’s annual exhibition on Friday, March 12 at 7 p.m.

— Victoria Lee, team member

Sean tang—the tech

patrick J. Vatterott ’13 leaps into the air to make a kill shot during the men’s volleyball match against Daniel Webster Col-lege in the duPont Gymnasium on Saturday. The match was one of a pair of wins the team achieved against other North East Collegiate Volleyball Association teams over the weekend.

Bball beats Coast GuardMIT leads by two games in NEWMAC

Made possible by the Council for the Arts at MIT

Free tickets for MIT Students!Alloy Orchestraperforming live to Man with a Movie Camera Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 8pmSomerville Theatre, Davis Square

Dziga Vertov’s groundbreaking film, Man with a Movie Camera, has influenced the generations of films that came out since the silent era. The film’s rapid editing and nonstop energy provide the perfect subject for what many believe is Alloy’s best score ever. And now a gorgeous new print from the Moscow Film Archive makes this show a “must see” event.

Alloy Orchestra is a 3-man musical ensemble, writing and performing live to classic silent films. An unusual combination of found percussion and state-of-the-art electronics gives the Orchestra the ability to create any sound imag-inable. Utilizing their famous “rack of junk” and electronic synthesizers, the group generates beautiful music in a spectacular variety of styles. They can conjure up a French symphony or a simple German bar band of the 20’s. The group can make the audience think it is being attacked by tigers, contacted by radio signals from Mars or swept up in the Russian Revolution.

1 ticket per valid MIT student ID

Tickets available at the MIT Office of the Arts (E15-205) Monday - Friday, 2:30 - 5:30pm in person, first-come, first-served only

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